Mother
by psychopathjack
Summary: Morrigan shouldn't ever expect her plans to go perfectly. They never have, even into motherhood.


_Inspired upon the lovely artwork done by alamarri as part of the Dragon Age Reverse Big Bang._

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_My post date was 9/17/2014, and I originally didn't wish to post here but I suddenly changed my mind. There are several wonderful art pieces and stories based off them for this challenge that you guys should really check out, including, "The Innocent Price of Freedom" by Jade Sabre, whom also found inspiration in alamarri's fantastic art aside myself._

_You can find both the Dragon Age Big Bang and alamarri's art on tumblr._

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><p>Morrigan darted awake, blinking her eyes in frustration. It was far too quiet for her liking. Well, aside from the footsteps echoing through the darkness of her room. Sluggishly she forced herself up, trying to adjust her eyes to the darkness. What was missing? Blinking again she homed in on the empty spot covered in pillows next to her.<p>

Baby.

Oh. That's right. Where was the baby? Morrigan tried to open one of the curtains, despite the darkness of the early morning-a habit-and quickly readjusted, lighting a torch.

It was chilly, and the floor was cold against her feet, but she didn't bother with bringing a sheet down the clever arrangement of marble steps with her. Outside her room everything was luxurious. The walls and the tables, surrounded by tapestries and elegant stone statues clasping their hands together in what Morrigan assumed was prayer to Andraste. She hated them most times. Especially as they passed from the corner of her eye in the torchlight, shadows dancing eerily across them. Most appropriate.

The building was immense, housing so many rooms it rivaled a mansion. It looked a mansion. Why, it even has stairs that go for miles circling round. Morrigan was baffled to learn they purposely built it this way-a sanctuary for the study of medicine and childbearing made up of stairs and stairs and stairs. Alas, Orlai was excessive and strange.

Morrigan heard them before she found them, turning down the last spiral staircase towards the kitchens. Leliana was singing softly to the bundle on her hands, undoubtedly Morrigan's son, perching upon one of the stools near the fireplace. And, in turn the Little One was attempting to latch his fingers onto the bottle in Leliana's hand, although a feeble effort. His fingers curled against the glass instead, but he didn't seem to mind, or notice.

Morrigan pulled out a stool next to them, saying nothing. She faced the fire, blowing out her torch, merely listening to Leliana murmur.

"I didn't mean to wake you.", Leliana said. Her hair wasn't any longer, but Morrigan noted the blackness of her robes. A stark difference to the armour and beige cloak she enjoyed stalking about in lately.

Morrigan replied dully, "He always wakes me at this hour. You didn't do anything." Something about finally seeing Leliana here after months of no word made Morrigan feel disgruntled.

Next thing she knew Leliana was resting the babe in her arms and rummaging through the cabinets, subsequently frying the uttermost rubbery eggs Morrigan has ever tried to swallow. She was going to argue Leliana try frying some sausage instead. The rogue actually held some talent at cooking meats, but Morrigan felt just as tired as she was indignant.

Leliana carried the babe for Morrigan up the endless stairs whilst the witch led them back into her borrowed where Leliana decided it best to curl right against Morrigan's side on the bed-probably because the rogue knew it would hugely piss her off, and it did. They were stuck sharing a cot several times in the shared journey to Orlai, and in one way or another ignored the urge squabble at each other. Unlike, in fact, during their tireless quest beside Surana where Leilana couldn't stop bombarding the witch in endless questions and small talk, especially about her mother and her beliefs. As if the answers to those questions would do either of them any good.**  
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The rogue still prattled endlessly despite it all, though Morrigan feigned listening and let Leliana talk to the air. It was how she stayed sane.

Now it seemed Leliana could talk all she wanted to the Little One. He seemed to adore her voice, easily falling under when she hummed softly to him, rocking him back and fourth. Morrigan tried a few times, nervously whispering nonsense when it was only the two of them. She doubted it would work, not that she could recall a single lullaby.

He was tiny. Every detail fascinated him, from her lips to the hard rain falling outside. He wanted to touch everything and anything, to feel it with his fingers and his lips and his gums, striving to stick what he could into his mouth. His eyes lit up in this sort of magical, overwhelming way when she spoke. He was so fragile; imagining a little version of herself being gently held by her mother baffled her. What did her mother do with such a vulnerable thing? Left her to cry alone in her crib, probably.

Listening to him wail conflicted her. Leliana was better at it, dropping whatever it was she happened to be doing in aid of him. Morrigan fumbled about, callous to his needs. The day she gave to him had been pure anguish. Strangers surrounded her while Leliana distantly watched, undoubtedly awaiting a creature instead of the blood soaked infant flailing in the midwifes arms.

Once he was clean Leliana strode across the room, taking hold of him as if he belonged to her. Morrigan hardly cared. Yet, compared to the bliss from Leliana tenderly kissing his forehead, the blissful expression he made when Morrigan cradled him for the first time couldn't match. It made her feel smug.

They were identical, him and her.**  
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Morrigan expected honey blond hair, or even perhaps the vacuous chestnut colored eyes she often caught Alistair constantly glaring at her with. She wanted a girl. He was a chubby, itsy-bitsy creature with her shining golden eyes and her jet black hair.

Girls were … easy to understand. They could never be simple, never were they exactly the same, but they were all she knew. Men were the templars her mother occasionally brought to their hut and the very same she helped her mother chase away. They were foreign, just as babies were foreign. But Morrigan knew herself. She could teach about herself, and raise someone like herself. A boy was, well; she didn't know.

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><p>She slept the rest of day, waking hours later hot under the covers piled over the top of her. Leliana and the Little One were no where to be found. Probably outside playing or eating, leaving her to rest.<p>

It had been three months since she gave birth, and the midwives helped as much as they were able to teach her the basics of caring for her son-not without several sovereigns slipped under table of course. Morrigan had to force herself up, hanging her legs off the side of the bed. She was tired and her stomach was still tender although she had lost plenty of weight in between now and then, it didn't make her any less eager to leave.

"I can't believe you haven't named him yet.", Leliana said later, meeting Morrigan in one of the empty public chambers a door away from the great hall. She blew raspberries on his tummy, causing him to giggle and flail in her lap.

Morrigan watched, ignoring the sudden resentment building in her stomach. "It'll be pointless to name him spur of the moment I would think. A name holds great importance, especially his." She half lied. Her mind drew a blank because nothing fit him. All the names she knew were tainted, belonging to others. His name had to be uniquely his own.

The rogue barely acknowledged Morrigan's seething stare. But then, of course, Leliana had simply become accustomed to it. "And so you call him what then? Little One?", she asked.

Morrigan chided back, "Well obviously." Leliana only giggled in response, keeping herself focused on the babe. There had been once a time when Morrigan's disapproving tone made Leliana frown. Alas.

"What say you, hmm?" Morrigan poked the Little One lightly on the shoulder. She had what little she owned packed and ready to go come morning, though she was unable to sleep whilst being dreadfully tired. "If you let me sleep peacefully each night I'll give you a name. Whatever you like. I'll even call you after your father, even if it tis be the worst name to have imaginable."**  
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She was worse than dreadfully tired, actually. Leliana went back and fourth to gods know where and Morrigan, as is her nature, denied the midwives aid, exasperated to the Little One's ceaseless and ever consistent crying. "I have a better idea. Why don't you pick a name that would make your father cringe. Tis is an easy challenge really. Alistair hates self-serving people like us, he had always been cross with me for the stupidest reasons."

"I remember him being particularly sullen once where he paid the assassin to lie to me as foolish prank," She gave a bitter smile, continuing, "Apparently our dear assassin friend felt torn up about it later. I doubt he meant it-anyway. The point is Alistair bore this dinky little scowl at me for days. Better yet he didn't talk to me for days."

The Little One bounced in delight holding the tattered toy Leliana made for him by tying fabric together into a little toy that he beat mercilessly against the bed, all but listening to Morrigan babble. She was aware he couldn't understand a thing she said, and she admired him, stricken by the thought that perhaps he could still look exactly like Alistair. An Alistair adorned with her hair and her eyes.

The thought sickened her. Yet, "He'd you adore," slipped past her lips.

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><p>It was a long winter lacking in the fistfuls of snow Morrigan remembered. This part of Orlai never snowed. It showered hard, icy rain instead, puddling the cobblestone and leaving a sense of dreariness in its wake.<p>

There was a cottage on the outskirts of the city Morrigan invested good coin in, far from the chatter of the city, and the busybody midwives especially. The Little One cried in her arms, probably still freezing from the rain.

"It's worse than snow." Leliana said idly, walking beside Morrigan, holding a large satchel in her hands.

"I do recall you being the first to run into Orzammar's doors."

"I wasn't planning to die of frostbite unlike the rest of you. You must have been mad denying Alistair his coat."

"I was specifically told I couldn't kill him-pity for him."**  
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"Surana really didn't tell you that, did she?" Leliana shook with laughter, picturing it in her head no doubt. It caused the Little One to stop his bailing momentarily, staring at her in confusion. "Ah, I can't be surprised. The two of you bickered regularly enough sometimes Zevran and I would joke you liked each other."

Morrigan was glad they arrived at the cottage when they did. She found no humour in their instant jokes about Alistair and her being a couple. She went for subtly suggesting Leliana keep quiet though the rogue blatantly ignored her, as if it was the rogue's duty to prove she subconsciously loved him.

The cottage was mostly clean aside from dust and a few cobwebs hanging in some of the corners. It consisted of three average sized rooms all made of stone, one room being a wash room that Morrigan hung their damp clothes.

She let the Little One crawl around the kitchen as she started a fire, leaving Leliana to pull her mother's grimoire from the satchel. The sides of the pages were lined with Morrigan's notes, deciphering it's riddles. One page covering spells for morphing held a code to another spell, and vice versa.

It looked as beautiful as the day Surana placed it in Morrigan's hands with each page edged gold; her mother's most prized possession.

What little information uncovered was sparse-paragraphs about the ancient Eluvian, tidbits covering the history of blood magic, in addition to something about raising dragons. The blood ritual Morrigan performed together with Alistair was there too, leaving much to be desired. It was unspoken knowledge Flemeth knew of the ritual because she had done the ritual herself. At least, before Leliana mentioned it.

Morrigan couldn't figure out exactly when the rogue took an interest in her plans. The Warden, Surana, took such an interest in both them. Leliana was always sort of there tagging alongside, not accounting Alistair and Surana's foul smelling mutt Morrigan spurned missing far too much.

Surana spent far too much time chatting with Leliana during their long walks, seeming to believe Morrigan preferred private conversation, and often keeping her distance while leaving Morrigan stuck with the most wonderful Alistair. It made Morrigan wonder.

The rogue followed after her from Fort Drakon, ever so carefully. Morrigan returned to the Wilds in search of her mother's hut. It was empty like she expected, leaving not but a trace of her mother's plans. Flemeth demanded many things of her, all lacking explanation-purposely. The dark ritual had been included in these many things.

Morrigan thought Leliana was a wild animal at first, striking her with a blast of thunder. It missed, the rogue moving aptly dodging, barely making it. "Walls have ears," Leliana said when Morrigan pried her for answers, wondering if the rogue had caught on.

Here they were now, months later still short on answers.

The Little One was a ball of energy. He never wanted to sleep for long, ready to play and explore around the cottage. She'd let him crawl as much as he wanted so long as it meant she could sit. Several times she found him, head to toe in soot from crawling inside the fire place; she made sure the fire was out before letting him wander, she wasn't that horrible. Leliana,on the other hand, was appalled.

"Morrigan you actually have to play with him you know. Like this," She sat him into his wooden high chair, catching his interest by softly poking his nose. He beamed, bouncing. Then she quickly covered her face with her hands . "I'm not here." She mumbled. He gasped, pure confusion and shock on his face. Suddenly he was overtaken with glee as she uncovered her face, flailing his arms this way and that, giggling.

Morrigan hardly found it amusing, crossing her arms.

"You try," Leliana said, urging Morrigan towards the table with her hands. This whole thing was ridiculous, and Morrigan couldn't help feeling slightly embarrassed for herself, mimicking the rogue's display perfectly, albeit sounding far less enthusiastic. Something in Morrigan needed to prove she was better at it than Leliana. She couldn't be sure as to why.

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><p>The rains stopped, letting a chilly spring air take its place. Flowers bloomed as green overtook greys and decaying browns. In all the passing months he showed no signs of magic whereas Morrigan had hoped he'd be a prodigy. He grew a tad bigger, unwavering in his curiosity of the world. He was simply a child, and the only special thing about was his conception.<p>

How mundane, Morrigan thought, lounging in the field of purple flowers surround their cottage. She had Leliana help her make him a playpen so he could dig in the dirt to his heart's content.

He loved to pull the flowers and the weeds out by the roots using his little shovel. Morrigan eventually learned to keep watch on him since he greatly enjoyed stuffing them into his mouth very promptly after, a deadly decision on his part. "What am I to do with you, eh?" She said, reprimanding him and ripping the shredded apart flower from his small hands.

She collected handfuls of the flowers, some pink, some bright yellow, spreading them around the cottage as cheerful decoration. It was boring, but half the time she had nothing better to do. The Little One loved helping her pick them too, and she attempted her best at teaching him to hold the flowers instead of throwing them or bending them. He enjoyed beating them against, well, abundantly everything. Otherwise, she cooked their petals in pot, harvesting their oils to make poultices and other random remedies.**  
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Her mother's grimoire was filled with recipes. Morrigan found herself in the steady habit of picking through it once the Little One grew irritable, ready for his afternoon nap. She carried him to the back room, fluffing the pillows, placing him in the center of them. He hated sleeping in his crib. Here, as she sat on the edge of the bed next to him, he slept peacefully for a good hour or two.

A considerable part of herself debated whether Flemeth planned to possess the boy. To live in the body of a reincarnated god. The other's had to be somewhere, they had to have been remarkable beings, yes?

Conspicuously, a scant few so legendary as Flemeth existed in myth. One in particular was known to all of Thedas; Leliana was very good at making Morrigan wonder about the world, even if the rogue never realized it.

The Little One always woke from his naps, blubbering in spite her rubbing his stomach to remind him she was right there with him. She still had no name for him. On and off she'd click her tongue at him like he was a mabari as she did currently, hoping he'd stop crying for just a brief moment. It never worked, with a decent part of herself enraged that she wasn't capable of naming a baby.

"Let's get you fed I suppose," She said to him in a mundane tone, lifting him into her arms. He suckled on her breast eagerly. The little demon, she sighed.

Taking care of him was a routine in the same way trudging through the terrain listening to Alistair gripe about how awful she was, was routine. How she bit her tongue those last couple of days during the landsmeet, how she expected Leliana to suddenly come and go, casually feeding the rogue's intrusiveness. It never felt natural.

She gazed down at him and always, always she saw nothing but a stranger. She would keep looking, as she wiped his mouth clean after he ended up eating more dirt, or when she changed him. It was worse when she'd catch herself wondering if Flemeth looked down at her, feeling absolute disdain.**  
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It strangely brought to mind Alistair's remark about her nose. It was seemingly ages ago, and the first real time they had been left alone together. Alistair led her around, stalking the dead rose bushes, joyously pining over a single rose lucky enough to have survived. They argued, though she couldn't say who started it. But then he said it. Worse, he snickered at her gasp.

She absolutely hated him, but the thought of being like Flemeth …

The Little One always opted for the purple flowers over all the others. He rattled his pen, trying to push it towards them from his spot next to the porch. Morrigan was done picking flowers for the day. She made so many poultices, she stashed over half of them into Leliana's satchel whenever possible.

Her reaching down to lift him out of the pen tore his grip away from it to her bangs, His eyes were bright, full of wonder because he was a person. He carried with him a soul and a mind, which soon she'd see blossom. He needn't be a prodigy, or special.

She carried him through the field, allowing him to pull and tug at the petals all he wished, studying him. His hands were still weak but he was determined.

"That's very good", She said, pleased, reaching across to fiddle with his fingers. "You're going to need to be very strong in this world because it's only people like us that survive." He was content in her arms, absent to her intentions.

Out of all the potential names that came to mind for him, none fit. They all gave a promise, an inkling that he'd become something other than what she wanted. She wanted power and she wanted freedom; she wanted everything. But once she named him she wouldn't be able to deny she loved him. That she loved his smile, his sleeping face, his fascination over the world

And, she if she loved him what would the whole point be? He'd be nothing more than a child, instead of a god.


End file.
